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To: gore3000
Ah, ok, thanks. Easy enough. I'd like to look into much of this material, but there's no way I'll have the time before next weekend. FWIW, I won't likely change my stance favoring evolution in any case, but I certainly find alternate arguments of interest. I don't operate on the assumption that one discards a scientific model with a preponderance of support simply because of minor objections. I ascribe to the idea of modifying the model to account for whatever evidence might require further exegesis. Moreover, there's simply no viable alternative to the evolutionary model or something very much like that which I'm aware of. In order to discard the evolutionary model, then one must provide an alternative model which explains the available empirical evidence in a superior fashion.

I can also tolerate a greater level of perceptual uncertainty than most seem capable of. Even assuming that I accepted the impossibility of abiogenesis as currently conceived, then I would simply say that something comparable had to have taken place at some point in the past that remains as yet unexplained. The fact that no one has been brilliant enough to figure that out does not alter the fact that it must have taken place. Moreover, it is fallacious to assume that something which does not readily occur in the present environment (to our knowledge) did not readily occur in some past environment. Finally, however low the plausibility, it does not alter the fact that a particular event occurred nonetheless when the consequences of that event are self-evident.

13 posted on 10/11/2002 9:31:15 PM PDT by AntiGuv
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To: AntiGuv
I don't operate on the assumption that one discards a scientific model with a preponderance of support simply because of minor objections.

I think the objections to evolution are indeed quite strong. I will take a living organism's evidence of design over a few bones everytime. The big problem with evolution is that there is no 'how' to it. Each time evolutionists have proposed how it occurs, science has come along and thoroughly disproved it. One must at some point start saying 'a theory that is wrong so often cannot be correct'.

In order to discard the evolutionary model, then one must provide an alternative model which explains the available empirical evidence in a superior fashion.

I do not think that is correct. It is better to discard a false theory than to adhere to it. False theories lead to false conclusions and this is never good. However, there is a theory (and there has been since before Darwin) to explain life. It is called intelligent design and it is well explained by the little story from Newton above.

I can also tolerate a greater level of perceptual uncertainty than most seem capable of. Even assuming that I accepted the impossibility of abiogenesis as currently conceived, then I would simply say that something comparable had to have taken place at some point in the past that remains as yet unexplained.

Well, you can believe as you like of course but to hold the above belief you have to admit that you are forcing your theory on the facts instead of deriving it from the facts as it is proper. Therefore you cannot claim a scientific basis for a belief in abiogenesis.

Finally, however low the plausibility, it does not alter the fact that a particular event occurred nonetheless when the consequences of that event are self-evident.

Well, no one is arguing that life did not arise sometime in the past. The question is whether it was divinely wrought or it arose by chance. All scientific evidence is on the side of divine creation.

46 posted on 10/11/2002 10:20:36 PM PDT by gore3000
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To: AntiGuv
Self-evident? Evolution? Another bump for government education...< /sarcasm >
60 posted on 10/11/2002 10:32:03 PM PDT by ApesForEvolution
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